


if you’re lost out where the lights are blinding

by arachnistar



Series: when the dust settles [1]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Zombie Apocalypse, florida fic, no one dies, some violence and gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 17:59:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11018625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnistar/pseuds/arachnistar
Summary: “Are you crazy? New York City is Zombie Central.”“We have friends there.”“Sorry to say it, but they’re probably dead.”Or the one where the zombie apocalypse breaks out while Jake and Holt are in Florida and they decide to drive and fight their way back up to Brooklyn.





	if you’re lost out where the lights are blinding

**Author's Note:**

> I started this about two months ago, expecting about 2-3k of zombie road trip adventure. Since then it’s grown far larger than initially expected. It’s also spawned ideas for follow-up oneshots, which hopefully won't take as long to write. Title is from Something Wild by Lindsey Sterling which has been my constant companion for the majority of the writing and editing of this fic.
> 
> I also wanted to give a big thanks to all the people I yelled at about this fic/verse and all the encouragement they threw my way. Thanks startofamoment, elsaclack, peraltiagoisland, and EveningRose! You’re all amazing! Also my sister who isn't even in the fandom and isn't going to read this but still listened to me prattle on about it! 
> 
> **Warnings** for some violence and mild gore.

 

> _“If you’re lost out where the lights are blinding,_  
>  _Caught in all the stars are hiding_  
>  _That’s when something wild calls you home, home_  
>  _If you face the fear that keeps you frozen_  
>  _Chase the sky into the ocean_  
>  _That’s when something wild calls you home, home.”_  
>  \- Something Wild by Lindsey Stirling

The first outbreak is in San Francisco or Boston or possibly even Las Vegas, if certain evangelical preachers are to be believed about the price of sin.

The point is this: no one is certain where it starts or why it starts, just that it does and that it spreads very fast once it hits. For several days, the news reports sick people with strange rashes and aggressive outbursts in the thousands and then the millions throughout cities all over the United States and then Canada and Mexico. After that, the TV stations and papers fall silent and the only reports left are those trickling over the radio and through word-of-mouth.

But before that, things get bad enough that they stop calling it an outbreak and start calling it a plague and eventually the end.

Jake doesn’t take any notice at the beginning, when people think it’s just an unusual strain of rabies. He’s too busy splitting his time between scanning the news for mentions of Jimmy Figgis and lying on whatever surface happens to be nearby, mostly his bed and the couch but the floor a few times, entirely disconnected from the rest of the world. The TV is on half the time, white noise to his misery.

It’s one of these moments, several days after the first reported incidence, when he first realizes that the world has shifted around him yet again.

He’s on the sofa at the time, the TV droning in the background, staring at a photo of Amy that no one knows he has when he hears _“New York City”_ from the television. It’s not wholly uncommon to hear the city’s name on TV, but it still makes Jake sit up and jerk his head around like a conditioned dog.  

_“- the sight of the devastation. Hundreds of bodies line the streets and even more stalk them. Quarantine zones have been created in the hopes of staving off the spread – “_  

The reporter is still talking, reporting death counts and expected infection numbers and military procedures to reinstate order, but the words buzz meaninglessly in Jake’s ears. He’s paralyzed by the pictures on screen, the familiar New York streets scattered with corpses and devoid of their usual crowds. One of the shots shows a group of people – no, not people, he realizes, something monstrous that was once human – gathered around a corpse, kneeling and feeding on its flesh. His stomach twists and the room seems to spin around him, the images searing their way on to his retinas.

Amy is in New York.   

Amy is in New York, which is currently being overrun by… zombies, they’re zombies even though the reporter hasn’t used that word, has in fact avoided it like zombies were too improbable for the real world, but Jake knows it’s the right word. His hands curl into tight fists.  

Amy is possibly – no, she’s alive, she has to be, there’s no world where she could have died, especially one where he was miles away and helpless to do anything about it.

Jake squeezes his eyes shut to stop the spinning, block out the pictures the television continues to play. He takes a shuddering breath in, holds it for a few seconds, then lets it go.

If anyone can survive the zombie apocalypse, it’s Amy Santiago. She would hole up with the rest of the squad at the precinct, protected by sturdy walls and enough ammunition to blow a hole in any threat. She would stay safe with their friends and draw up plans for every contingency, lists for everything they needed, all of it put together in a neat binder. _Amy Santiago’s Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse_. It would work too, it would let all of them survive no matter what happened, because she was smart and tough and had the rest of the precinct at her back.

Except for him.

His eyes fly open and he shoots up from the couch. He needs to find a way to New York. Now.

It’s been a long time since he’s felt any energy, anything that wasn’t fatigue or bone-deep despair, but now he’s bursting with it, manic and caterwauling and too close to some edge he doesn’t want to go over. He feels like he could run all the way to New York City with just this energy fueling his steps – but there are faster ways to do it.

Jake hurries next door and smashes the doorbell a few times and then raises his fist to hammer at the door for good measure. It opens almost immediately and he has to pull back his hand before he smacks Captain Holt in the face.

“Holt!” Jake yells his name, the energy in his shaking body unable to remember concerns like volume or secret identities. “Did you see the news?! We need to –”

“ _Larry_ – “

Jake bristles. “Do you think that matters when there are zombies walking around? The world is _ending_ – we need to get to New York _now_.”

“Agreed.”

“Marshal Haas will just have to deal because – oh wait, did you just say you agreed with me?” The steam runs out of Jake and he stops talking, mouth still half-open, shoulders dropping from their defensive position.  

“I did.”

“Oh.“ He blinks multiple times and yep, this is actually happening.       

“As you said, there are larger concerns than Figgis and WITSEC protocols at work. There may not even be a government to deal with soon.” Jake’s blood runs cold at that, every zombie and apocalypse movie he’s ever seen playing in his head at the same time. No government – or else, a harsh militaristic one. Either way, nothing good but also nobody left to be upset by this particular breach. “We must find our way back to New York.”   

Holt pronounces this like a commander, with steel in his eyes, as if he would battle his way through Hell itself to return to his precinct and his husband. Jake believes he could even succeed too and it sends his heart soaring into his throat with relief. They’ll find their way to New York and they’ll find their friends and they’ll face this new world together.

They’re going to make the most badass zombie road-trippers ever.   

Jake grins. It feels a little mad to him and dangerous, brimming with a newfound mission. “Let’s go then!”

“Not yet.” Jake opens his mouth to argue that they don’t have time to waste but Holt holds up a hand and for the first time, Jake listens quietly. He attributes it to the striking commander image Holt has going for him at the moment. “First we need to get some supplies. We’ll need weapons and food if we want to make it all the way.”

“Good plan, good plan,” Jake bobs his head, pointing his finger up and in a random direction that likely has a gun store because there are a _ridiculous_ number of gun stores in this town.  “To the gun store!”

“We should pack some things first.”

His arm drops. “Really killing it on the epic proclamation front, aren’t you?” He sighs. “Fine, we’ll pack first. Then to the gun store!”

\--

The walls of the gun shop are half empty, which isn’t a huge surprise with the threat of zombies on the horizon. What is a surprise is that the owner is still there, sitting behind the counter, feet kicked up like this is any other day and not the beginning of the apocalypse. He has a rifle by his side and when the bell above the door rings, he grabs it and points it at them. Automatically Jake and Holt raise their arms.

“Don’t shoot.” Holt says, the picture of calm. “We are here to buy some guns.”

The man squints at them and then lowers his rifle with a nod. “Alright then.”  

Jake drops his arms. “Is this how you treat all your customers?” 

“Sorry ‘bout that. Can’t be too careful these days. Any moment a zombie can walk through that door and then, bam!” He swings the gun up around again and Jake almost flinches, hand dropping to the non-existent gun on his belt, at the sudden motion. “That’s it for me if I ain’t got a gun ready to pump ‘em full of lead.”

“Are there even any zombies in Coral Palms?” Jake asks.

The streets from their homes to the gun shop had been blessedly free of corpses and zombies alike and he hasn’t heard of any violent outbursts. Of course, up until earlier that day, he’d been unaware of the catastrophe in general, so maybe he’s just missed the attacks.

“They’re everywhere.”

Jake exchanges a look with Holt who shakes his head slightly.

Holt steps forward. “We don’t have any identification but – “

The owner waves him off. “I don’t care about that. Never really did, if we’re being honest.”

“Reassuring.”

He leans closer. “The world is ending, bros! It’s about to get all Night of the Living Dead up in this country. Everyone’s gonna need a gun to blast those sickos. Now what’ll you have?”

Once the man rounds up all the guns and ammunition they need, Jake holds out his credit card. The man stares at it for a moment and then barks a laugh.

“Nah, man, I’m not accepting credit anymore.”

“We don’t have enough cash for all this.” Jake glances behind him at Holt who shakes his head. He’s frowning and Jake knows he’s berating himself for not thinking ahead. Jake is too, but then he’s never been good at planning ahead.

“Not my problem, man.” Jake considers grabbing the guns and making a break for it, leaving behind all his money. It wouldn’t be right, but given the state of the world, no one would go after them and they desperately need them to get to New York in one piece. “You know what? If you can get me some boxes of food, I’ll give you these guns. What do you say?”

Jake doesn’t want to waste more time ferrying groceries back for this man, but it’s better than the alternative. He nods at Holt, Holt nods back, and in unison, they agree, “Deal.”

\--

The drive to the supermarket is short. Jake keeps his eyes peeled for zombies, but doesn’t see any. It’s almost disappointing. He doesn’t see many people either though he knows there are usually more out on a Friday afternoon.

Things aren’t much better at the supermarket, the parking lot entirely empty. The store’s sliding doors are shattered and the lights are off inside.

They grab a shopping cart and step through into the dim space. Aisles normally filled with food are emptier than usual, particularly the canned food section. It feels wrong to walk in a supermarket without the bright fluorescent lights on overhead, forbidden and dangerous, like anything could happen.

Jake’s hands curl around the shopping cart and he wishes they had a gun to curl around instead. Or at least a bat, anything that could provide some measure of protection if a monster suddenly decided to jump out.

“This is way creepier than it should be.” Jake remarks.

“Yes. It appears looters have already struck.”

“But there aren’t even any zombies here!”

“That we know of.” Holt says. “In any case, the news would have caused a panic.”

They pile their cart with as many cans as possible and then stop to grab cereal boxes, Holt’s face wrinkling when Jake throws Cookie Crisp in (“cookies for breakfast?” “it’s the best” “it’s preposterous”) before adding his own multi-grain bran. Jake adds orange soda, Holt adds water, Jake throws in several bags of gummy worms, Holt places apples and oranges because they may as well consume fresh fruit as long as it exists. To top off their foraging, Jake tosses in a couple boxes of Twinkies.

At Holt’s look, he explains, “They’re a zombie apocalypse _staple_. And they’ll _never_ go bad.”

“I doubt that.” Holt picks up one box to examine it. His brows rise. “They provide absolutely no nutritional value.”

“And they have something called Yellow 5 in them.” Jake adds with a large grin. Holt’s eyebrows climb impossibly higher. “It’s great.”

Before Holt can lodge another complaint which Jake is prepared to deflect because they can’t go on a road trip through zombie America and _not_ have Twinkies, it would be _criminal_ , they’re interrupted by a low groan. Jake and Holt freeze, eyes wide. Now that they’re quiet, they can hear the shuffling steps of someone moving around.

Jake glances around but there aren’t any handy bats lying around. There’s nothing except packages of immortal snack cakes and powdered donuts.

The groaning gets closer. Holt waves his hand and they creep back down the aisle, away from the sounds. It’s unfortunate that they have to leave their cart, but ending up dead is a worse fate. Maybe they can ask the gun shop owner for one gun to deal with this zombie and return for their food.

They don’t make it out of the aisle before the zombie turns the corner. It was once a man, a tall man with a wild mullet and beard. Its flesh is puckered, tinged green, the skin sloughing off one of his cheeks. The moment it sees them, it screeches and charges.

Together they run to the exit. As they go, Jake spots a crowbar resting by the cash register. He reaches out and seizes it.

“Peralta!”

Jake ignores him and turns back. They can’t leave without the food, because then they’ll have to find somewhere else to load up and Coral Palms is the type of town with only one major supermarket. They’ll have to try a gas station. Maybe several gas stations, if the looters have hit them hard enough and food is hard to come by.

In any case, it’ll only delay their departure, which means delaying their arrival in New York City, which means delaying the moment he sees Amy again. With that thought in mind, his hands tighten on the crowbar and when the zombie comes tearing up to him, he swings at its skull. The zombie goes down.

It’s still… Jake isn’t sure he can use the word alive, but its limbs are still twitching and it’s going to get up any moment now. He swings again, harder this time, with the force of gravity behind him, and a crack resonates through the store. The zombie doesn’t move after that.  

Jake wants to be like Tallahassee or El Wray, badass, crowing about the number of zombies he’s killed, but right now, it’s taking all his strength not to retch at the smell of rotting flesh and the sight of gray brain matter spread out on the floor and speckled on his skin. This isn’t the first time he’s seen a gruesome scene, being a detective has given him more than his fair share of gross stories to charm people with, but this is different.

_He_ did this.

It’s even worse when he notices the locket lying on the man’s tie-dyed chest, now spattered in blood. This used to be a human being. He had dreams and aspirations and someone special, until he became a zombie and had his skull bashed in. Jake’s chest heaves up and down and he lets the crowbar slip from his hands. It clatters to the ground and even that is too loud, making Jake flinch.

“Peralta.” Holt says, voice sharp against the deadly silence of the store. “Charging a creature of unknown power armed only with a crowbar was reckless. Worse than that, it was foolish and dangerous! You could have been killed. Or infected. This is not one of your action movies, so stop trying to play the role of the big hero!”

Jake wasn’t trying to be the big hero.

Okay, maybe he was, just a little, but mostly he can’t stand the thought of not getting out on the road at the first possible moment, at not getting to Amy as quickly as possible.

“We can get our food now,” is all Jake can manage to say around the lump in his throat.

Jake’s tone seems to give Holt pause; at least, he doesn’t continue his tirade. He peers closer at Jake, eyes flickering over him, then down at the defeated zombie (the _person_ – this isn’t like the movies at all, these are, were, _people_ ), and then he nods.

They step around the body, giving it a wide berth, and take their shopping cart. Holt leaves bills next to one of the registers, even though there’s no sign anyone will ever return to the shop.

\--

Once they’ve handed some food over to the gun man and received guns in exchange, they pull out of Coral Palms and merge on to I-95. An hour passes in silence.  

Jake spends the time staring out the window at the unchanging scenery, tall marsh grasses stretching out in every direction. The zombie – the man in the tie-dye shirt – stays in his head the entire time.

Logically he understands that he didn’t have a choice, that the zombie was not human anymore and would never be again unless scientists somewhere found a cure. It still doesn’t erase the sensations from Jake’s mind, the odors of his rotting flesh or the sound of breaking bone and squelching flesh or the sight of his locket covered in blood.

It’ll be easier now, he figures, with guns to provide some distance. Not better – but easier.

“You’ve been unusually quiet. Are you alright?”

Jake grins the widest smile he can muster. “I’m fine, great, never been better. We’ve got our guns and we’re on the road. All we need are some good apocalypse tunes.”

Jake can feel Holt’s eyes boring into him, trying to excavate his secrets, so he keeps his eyes on the horizon. Florida is so flat and given that they’ve long since left civilization, if Coral Palms could even be called such, behind, there’s nothing to distract from the stretch of the land. It seems to go on forever and Jake has the uncomfortable thought that this is the type of place people end up trapped in. This featureless landscape will stretch on for the rest of his life and he’ll never get back to Amy.

“Peralta.”

Jake sighs. That’s the voice Holt uses when he’s in full Captain mode, the one that says he’s very disappointed in you, the one that expects better. Jake will never admit it, but at the end of the day, it’s always gotten under his skin and made him want to rectify things.

He stares down at his hands. An hour and a half ago, they were speckled with blood and brain matter. He had scrubbed at them hard before leaving, but the memory persists. His hands curl into fists.  

“Do you know why I was so harsh on you in the supermarket?”  

“Because you thought I was rushing in like it was Left 4 Dead and I didn’t take time to strategize my entrance?”

“I… am not familiar with that one.” Jake shrugs. He hadn’t expected Holt to know. “It’s because I was – concerned. We do not know the full strength of these zombies and your attack was foolhardy. You could have died.”

“I wasn’t trying to be a hero.” Holt is quiet. Jake glances at him from the corner of his eye. He’s still driving but his eyes are on Jake, thoughtful. “I – I didn’t want to leave the food behind. It’s the only supermarket in town and I didn’t want to waste more time looking for food when we should have been driving to New York. And there was just the one zombie, I knew I could take it…” He bites his lip. He doesn’t regret his action, it got them on the road faster, but he sees Holt’s point. “It was still stupid.”

There’s a pause. Jake keeps his eyes firmly locked on the horizon ahead of them.

“I apologize.”

Jake’s head swivels around, mouth agape, to stare at Holt. The other man is looking straight at the road ahead. “I should not have been so quick to judge. It was not right to assume that you were doing it just to be like your Hollywood zombie killers. That said, getting to New York won’t matter if one of us dies on the journey. No more stunts like that, regardless of your reasons. Understood?”

“Yes.” The air is still too heavy, the type of serious atmosphere that makes Jake want to run, so he smiles and points his fingers, gun-style, at the windshield. He doesn’t meet Holt’s eyes, because the zombie’s smashed head and locket are still in his head and he’s afraid the captain will just pluck the image from his mind and _know_. “I’m planning to shoot my way through zombies now. Pew, pew!”

“Is there something else bothering you?”

“Nope!” The word pops out of his mouth too quickly to pretend it isn’t anything but a lie.

Holt is quiet long enough that Jake thinks he’s going to drop it even though he can still feel Holt’s eyes on him. And then: “There is nothing wrong or shameful about feeling uneasy about killing someone. Even if they were a zombie trying to kill you.”

Jake gasps. “How do you do that?”

“I’m a detective.”

“Yeah, well –“ Jake’s hands twist together in his lap. Holt’s words are comforting; if someone like Holt doesn’t think there’s shame in his feelings, then maybe Jake has a right to his discomfort. It doesn’t change the fact that all the words about it have gotten stuck in his throat. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Very well.” Jake thinks that it’ll be the end of it and that they’ll lapse back into silence but Holt surprises him yet again. “Talk to me about Amy then.”

Jake blinks and stares at Holt. Holt keeps driving, giving no sign as to whether he’s genuinely curious about Jake’s relationship or if this is just a ploy to get his mind off the zombie. Whichever it is, it works. Jake thinks about Amy, beautiful and strong and smart and dorky Amy, with her shiny brown hair and warm brown eyes, and his heart brims with warmth.

“I’m excited to see her again. It’s all I’ve wanted for months. That and leaving Florida, but mostly seeing her again.” His face pales. His hands wring together, fingers tugging at each other. “But – what if we don’t fit together anymore? Or what if she thinks I got eaten by a zombie and a hunky badass zombie hunter came to comfort her and now she’s madly in love with him?”  

“I am sure that it will be incredible and that she did not find a hunky zombie hunter to replace you with.”

Jake bobs his head. Amy finding a new boyfriend is likely the least of his concerns. After all, she loves him. And zombie apocalypses aren’t a good time to start new romances – except, well, in half the zombie films in existence. He tugs at a loose string on his shorts, rolling it between his fingers.

Amy loves him and he has better things to worry about. Like their reunion being awkward. Or else her being zombie chow. Which she totally isn’t because she’s brilliant and tough and – okay, he needs a distraction from this distraction. 

Jake forces his hands still, they’re still twitching, as he asks, “What about Kevin? Are you excited to see him?”

“Yes. I am looking forwards to seeing him again.”

“Please tell me you’re going to have a big reunion smooch in front of everyone!”

“…Smooching,” Holt pauses significantly and Jake leans in, “may or may not happen in front of everyone.”     

“Aww, come on!” The slightest quirk to Holt’s mouth, barely noticeable, is all the response Jake gets. “I hope you know I’m taking that as absolutely definitely gonna happen.”  

\--

Three hours after they leave Florida behind (“see ya never!” Jake shouts out the window joyfully because even though it’s not how he imagined leaving Florida, it feels good to finally be out of the state), they see two women standing by the side of the road. One of them is waving a giant sign that reads _Help Needed!_ in big, blocky letters while her companion stands back, arms crossed. They’ve got a rifle leaning against their packs and a guitar case standing on the ground nearby. Holt and Jake glance at one another, but there’s really no question about whether they should stop or not.

Holt pulls up beside them and lowers the window. “Hello.”

The woman who had been waving the sign looks back at her companion. “I told you someone would stop.” The other woman rolls her eyes, but nods.

The first woman looks back at them and smiles. “Hi. Do you think we could catch a ride? We’re heading up to Bailey, North Carolina. My dad’s out there.”

“Of course.” 

Holt unlocks the back doors and the two women pile in with their packs. Once they’ve buckled themselves in, Holt starts driving again.  

The sign waver leans forward. Her brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail and even though the color is several shades lighter, it still reminds Jake of Amy and how much he’s missed her over the past months. “My name’s Ellie.”

“And I’m her wife, Riley.” The other woman says, a hint of challenge in her tone. Her bushy hair is drawn up into a bun. While her wife’s skin is light and freckled, Riley’s skin is dark brown.

“My name is Raymond Holt. This is my co-worker, Jake Peralta.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Ellie says. “Where are you two headed?”

“Brooklyn.”

Riley snorts. “Are you crazy? New York City is Zombie Central. Pro tip, you need to _avoid_ the big population centers, not go running towards them.”

“We have friends there.” Jake says, thinking of Charles and Rosa and Gina and Terry and Amy, all of them brave and strong and smart, surely enough of all those things to take on any threat. Even zombies.

“Sorry to say this, but they’re probably dead.”

“Riley!” Ellie nudges her wife and she shrugs, unapologetic.   

At the same time, Jake snaps, “They’re not dead!”  

The car falls silent, the type of cloying silence that sits heavy in your lungs like the humid Floridian air. Jake’s heart hammers away in his chest, each beat too loud, and his fists clench. Amy’s not dead. She isn’t. He would know. Somehow, he would know if she was gone. And the others – Rosa and Charles and Gina and Terry – they’re all okay too. They have to be.   

There’s some whispers from the back, Jake can’t make out the words and he isn’t good enough at lip-reading to figure it out from the rearview mirror, and then Riley pipes up, “I’m sorry. You’ll find them.”

Jake nods stiffly. He can’t speak and his eyes sting and his nails dig crescent shapes into his palms, as if that can hold back all his emotions and fears. _They’re alive_. He repeats the thought like a mantra, spread too thin over a much darker sea of possibilities. 

_They’re alive._

“We will. Just as you’ll find your father.” Holt replies.

He doesn’t seem at all ruffled by Riley’s remark, as if being told his friends were all probably dead was just another comment on the weather. Even knowing that Holt holds his emotions close, it drives Jake nuts. He wants to shake Holt until he blows like a volcano, but it wouldn’t be very conducive to driving and getting to New York, where their friends are definitely alive, is still priority number one.

Another lapse into silence and then Ellie starts talking about their zombie apocalypse experience thus far. Riley occasionally throws in her own details, how she ran all the way home after encountering her first zombie, frantic to ensure that Ellie was alright. Holt comments where needed. As if nothing had been said.

Jake remains quiet, fists tight, Riley’s words on repeat in his brain, steadily drowning out his own personal incantation.

He can imagine countless scenarios where something horrible happened to Amy; she was infected early on, or she was bitten walking down the street, or she fought off a horde of zombies to save someone else only to succumb to their numbers, or she was shot by someone too scared and panicked to look closer, finger too twitchy on the trigger. There are a thousand ways to die during the zombie apocalypse and so few ways to survive.

_They’re probably dead._

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Riley’s right. If the swell of zombies in New York City – and it’s such a large city, there are millions of people living there, were millions living there, now countless dead or zombified – washed over his friends, _Amy_ , like they didn’t mean everything.

_They’re alive._

They have to be. It’s the only world that makes sense.

\--

As the evening draws near, clouds pile up in the sky to form imposing castles complete with towers and buttresses edged in gold and purple by the setting sun. Gradually the sky darkens until there’s just the smallest slivers of color in the clouds. That’s when the rain comes down hard, slamming into their car like bullets. In the distance, there’s a flash followed by the low rumble of thunder.

Ellie shifts forward, poking her head between the two front seats. “We should find somewhere to stop.” 

“Agreed.” Holt says.

Jake asks. “Do we have to?”

“Yes. It’s dangerous to drive right now and we could all use some sleep.”

Jake bites his lip. The thought of stopping is making his leg shake uncontrollably, that urge to just _run_ the rest of the way to Amy’s arms accompanied by the litany of _they’re probably dead_ is a bad combination in his brain. But the truth is: Holt is right.

They drive a while longer, the growl of thunder and the roar of wind a constant soundtrack to their silence, until they find a lone two-story house surrounded by vast, open fields. A large porch wraps around the house and two rocking chairs stand out front by the door. It’s entirely dark, save for their headlights and the occasional flash of lightning, glinting off windows and an old Ford pick-up.

Armed with flashlights and guns, they walk to the door. Holt knocks once. When there’s no answer, he pushes open the door.   

“Peralta and I will check out the house. You two can wait out here.”

Riley shakes her head. “No way. We’re coming with.”

“We are not taking civilians inside a potentially dangerous situation.”

“You ain’t cops anymore.”

“And we’re not just civilians. We know how to shoot.” Ellie adds. “There’s safety in numbers.”

Jake says, just the slightest bit reluctantly, “She has a point, Captain.”

“Very well.” 

They step inside, one after the other, Holt in the lead with Jake, Ellie, and Riley following right after. Inside the house smells musty, as if it hasn’t been opened in days, and the air is heavy with heat and expectation. Nothing stirs as they fan out through the open living room, sweeping their lights over photographs and the scattered toys of a previous life. 

Jake’s muscles tense. His grip on his gun tightens, finger curling against the trigger. This is exactly like the scene in every horror movie when the monster pops out to tear people apart and he is not going to be caught unaware.

A boom cuts through the constant patter of rain and all four of them jump. Jake maybe shrieks, no one can prove a thing, but at least he doesn’t fire his gun at nothing. He has that much going for him – unlike Ellie or Riley, he isn’t sure which of them pulled the trigger, just that someone did and that the sound echoes through the house after.

“Damn thunder.” Riley grumbles.  

Riley’s proclamation is met by a screech. Jake swivels his flashlight in the direction of the sound, lighting up a zombie coming down the interior hall. Two gunshots ring out, one of them his, and the zombie crumbles. A moment later, more zombies stagger forth. It’s impossible to get an accurate count in the darkness, but Jake counts at least seven coming from the hallway, and judging from the sounds, even more are pouring out elsewhere.

Jake switches his flashlight to his mouth to get a better handle on his gun, sparing a thought for how useful a shoulder nova would be right about now, and fires at one zombie. It staggers and another shot, from Holt maybe, it’s hard to tell, takes it down.

Another zombie immediately takes its place, snarling at them. Jake fires at it – this one is about two feet shorter, with hair spilling out of pigtails tied with pink ribbons and ravenous eyes - and tries his best not to think about children when her, _its_ , head explodes. If he loses focus, thinks too much about who these zombies used to be and the lives they should have had, he’ll be done for and then –

“Behind you!”

Jake doesn’t even have time to turn before there’s a loud bang and something sticky hits the back of his neck. He glances behind him at the fallen zombie and then at Riley, still pointing her gun in his direction. He nods at her, she nods briefly back, and then they resume fighting off the remaining zombies.

It’s madness and chaos, zombies staggering into view from the shadows, even as their brethren fall, their groans reverberating through the small space, while the storm pounds the house from outside. Ellie’s screams of “fuck” and “take that” permeate the air as well with every shot.

Holt directs the others to back up, yelling commands over the snarls, so eventually they form a loose ring in the center of the room, guns facing out. Holt is right behind Jake, so close that he can nearly sense the heat emanating from him, and it reassures him, knowing that they’ve got each other’s backs. That Ellie and Riley have their backs too.

Jake shoots one final zombie and then waits, heart beating loudly in his chest, every sense strained for anything suspicious. Several minutes pass with just the patter of rain and rumble of thunder for company. His shoulders drop marginally and he gives the room and his companions a thorough scan. Corpses litter the living room and there’s blood _everywhere_ , spattered on furniture and clothing and faces alike, but everyone is still standing.

“Everyone good?” Jake asks. There’s a chorus of positive answers and Jake nods. “Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, I’m fine too.”

They sweep through the rest of the house and after confirming there aren’t any more zombies lurking in the house, they return to the living room, the air of which is now laden with the stink of rot and old blood. No one talks about what happened or how close they came to death.

“We’ll leave at dawn.” Holt says.

Everyone else agrees and then they shuffle off, Holt to a bedroom on the top floor and the married couple to one down the hall.

Jake doesn’t head to a bedroom, instead choosing to go into the kitchen. A round, wooden table sits in one corner by a set of three windows. After washing off his hands and face, he sits himself in one of the chairs, folding his legs in the seat.

He’s always had trouble sleeping during storms, from back when he was a kid and every crash of thunder sent him scrunching tighter under his bed. Nana had been the first to find him like that and she’d helped him construct a blanket fort with the promise that it would keep him safe from the storm. After that, every time a storm broke out, he’d grab his mom or Nana and they would construct a fort together and sit there trading stories about heroes until the thunder stopped.

The first time it’d happened without either of them there, he’d been over at Gina’s house. Gina had helped him build the fort without complaint. When he couldn’t stop shaking, she had started painting his nails, commanding him to sit still or he would mess up all her careful work. It had worked too, the steady brush of the nail polish and Gina’s potential disappointment stilling him.   

He’s come a long way since then, storms don’t scare him anymore and he likes watching lighting, finds it exciting even, but he still isn’t able to sleep during them.  

His eyes fall on a framed photograph to the right of the windows. It shows a large family gathered in front of a house on a sunny day, their arms around one another. In the front row, there’s a girl with pigtails sticking her tongue out at a smaller boy to her side. He swallows, stomach like a hard stone, and averts his eyes to the storm outside.

Jake doesn’t want to think about how quickly this family’s life fell apart, zombified and then killed in a matter of days, when the thoughts so easily lead him to thinking about his own family. His mom, of course, he has no idea if she’s okay or if she could even defend herself if a zombie ran into her, she doesn’t have any combat experience. And then there’s his family at the Nine-Nine, most of whom know how to wield a gun but nothing at the police academy could have prepared them for droves of zombies.

If a family in the middle of nowhere could be so completely ruined, then what was to stop the same thing from happening to his family back home? How could he ever know – unless he somehow manages to find them?  

His whole body begins to shake. He reaches for his gun, feels the cool comfort of metal press into his skin, and tries to focus on the slide of raindrops across the window. Tears slide down his face in much the same way.

Hours pass and the storm continues. At some point, his body stops shaking and he just sits and watches lightning splinter the sky, drowning out the thoughts of Amy and his mom and New York with every thunderclap.  

At some point, footsteps break through the quiet of the house and Riley sits in the chair opposite Jake. They stare out the window for many minutes without speaking before Riley finally nods, “Storm like this makes me feel like we could be the last people in the world.”

Jake glances over at Riley. “Are you always this cheerful?”

“We could be.” Riley shrugs. “There’s no way of knowing.”

He looks back outside. Unlike New York, where he’s surrounded by sounds at all hours, sirens wailing or cars honking or people rushing by, this place really does feel like it’s at the edge of the world at the end of it all. But then everywhere feels like the end now.

“I’m sorry for saying your friends are probably dead. If they’re anything like you and Raymond in a fight, they’ll be fine.”

Jake’s lips press together into a brittle version of a smile. He wants to believe it more than anything, that the others are all okay, surviving and taking names like the badass zombie killers they should be, but he can’t close the box on darker possibilities now that it’s been opened. “I hope so.”   

They watch the storm outside for a few quiet moments, the time between each burst of lightning has lengthened, it’ll be ending soon, and then his smile widens as he looks back at her. “Thanks for saving my life back there.”

“No problem.” Riley pauses. “I still think it’s crazy for you to go to New York.”

“What if it was Ellie?”  

Riley’s quiet for many moments, and then she snorts. “Touche. I’d march through the gates of hell for her.”

Jake nods. He’s never thought about it before, never condensed his feelings into statements like that, but he knows he would do the same for Amy. Is doing the same for her right now, crossing miles of zombie-infested landscape to get back to her rather than jumping on the first boat out of North America.  

“You have someone like that back home?”

“Her name’s Amy.”

“Married?”

“No.” An image of Amy in white, a ring glittering on her finger, flashes through his mind and his heart positively aches with how much he wants it. He glances down at his own fingers, clenches them tight, imagining a band on them. “I love her so much.”

“What were you doing in Florida then?”

“It’s a long story.”

“It’s a long storm.”

And so Jake tells her about Figgis and maximum security prisons and courage and devastating phone calls while outside the rain continues to fall. Riley chimes in occasionally, low laughter or notes of awe or sarcastic remarks. Time slides by and his heart grows warm as the conversation shifts to his friends in general.

An hour later, Holt and Ellie join them. Breakfast consists of apples and Frosted Flakes raided from the cabinets. They exit through the back door in the kitchen rather than stepping through the carnage of the living room to the front door.

Just as they get ready to leave, the clouds part and a rainbow stretches across the sky, every color vibrant against the gray backdrop. They all pause to stare. Jake’s heart aches looking at it, something soft and warm like hope stirring in his stomach. In a world where such beauty is still possible, Amy and the others must be alive. It’s an irrational thought, but a comforting one and he carries it close going forward.   

\--

The drive is livelier this time around.

Ellie tells them about learning guitar from her dad and meeting her wife in college. They learn that Ellie worked as a veterinarian and that Riley was a mechanic in their life before the zombie apocalypse. Jake relates all his best cop stories and in a softer voice, stories about Amy. Holt doesn’t reveal many details, much to Jake’s disappointment, but he does learn that Kevin once presented Holt with a poem in dactylic hexameter. Jake doesn’t know what that means but it sounds impressive.   

Eventually Ellie directs them off the freeway. It isn’t a long drive from there.  

“This is it. Home sweet Bailey.”  

The streets are depressingly deserted like every other small town they’ve gone by except for a few bodies piled off to the side by the grocery store. It’s a sobering thought; how quickly piles of bodies have gone from worthy of notice to just a mundane part of the urban landscape.

They pull up in the center of town, which appears free of zombies and is only a short walk away from Ellie’s childhood home. The two women pile out with their belongings and Holt rolls down the window.  

“Do you require further assistance?”

Jake knows that it’s good to offer and if Holt hadn’t, he would have, but he’s relieved when they turn it down.

“Thank you, but you’ve done more than enough already. We can take it from here.” Ellie swings her pack on to her shoulders and picks up her guitar. She turns to go and then swivels around, grin on her face. “You know you’re the first people who stopped. It’s good to know there are still some decent folk left out there.”

“Thank you.” Riley nods at each of them. “Good luck finding your friends.”   

Jake nods back. “Thanks. Good luck.”

Ellie waves and then the duo turn away. Jake will miss them, has enjoyed their company the past few hours since the farmhouse. He hopes they find Ellie’s father and a way to reach safety. To survive in all of this.  

Their car idles for a bit. Holt and Jake watch them head down the street until it’s just the two of them against the end of the world once more.

Then they set off for home.   

\--

“Amy thinks 28 Days Later is the best zombie movie ever, but she’s wrong. Dawn of the Dead is the best one. The original, not the remake, though the remake is good too. What do you think Captain? 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead?”

“I have not seen either of those films.”

“But Dawn of the Dead is a classic! It’s the Die Hard of zombie movies!”

“I have never seen Die Hard either.”

Jake gasps. “Whaaaaaaaaaaaat? How do you go through life having never seen Die Hard? And you call yourself a police captain!”  

Holt shoots Jake a pointed look, which Jake entirely ignores because this is an utter tragedy on the same level as anything they’ve seen so far during this drive. Well, okay, maybe that was taking things a bit too far, but it didn’t diminish the fact that Holt was missing out on a cinematic masterpiece.

“That’s it. The moment we find the others, we’re hooking a TV up to a generator and watching Die Hard.”

“And waste electricity for the sake of entertainment?”

“It’s not a waste. It’s a righting of wrongs!” Holt snorts. “What about Kevin? Does he have a favorite zombie movie?”  

“Kevin does not watch zombie movies.”

“Of course he doesn’t.”

“Although,” and here Holt smiles and Jake sits up a little straighter, leaning forward for what he hopes is a juicy story, “there was one instance when our mutual… _acquaintance_ kept insisting that zombies were the most accurate allegory of the human condition and our base instincts.”

The way Holt’s lip curls at acquaintance promises what Jake wants, but the rest of the story devolves into flashbacks of English classes Jake didn’t pay much attention to. He nods at Holt. Maybe there’s a punchline up ahead. “Soooo….”

“To which Kevin replied that his viewpoint was exceedingly limited to a Western analysis rather than something universal and even narrower than that, one focused on the heteronormative white male perspective. He brought up several cooperative cultures to demonstrate the point. Of course Kevin had to provide a counterargument for what zombie stories were meant to show, if not human nature. His argument was that zombie stories were vehicles to explore human reaction – to tragedy or the press of capitalism, depending on the story – which says far more about human nature than the monsters they’re fighting. And then he concluded that Sauvageon’s argument about zombies said far more about _his_ base nature than any universal human nature.”  

Jake stares at Holt blankly, uncertain whether he’s supposed to be laughing or offering condolences or cheering Kevin on. He thinks it’s the latter. Holt stares back before finally sighing. 

“That was exceedingly hilarious.”

“Was it?” Jake cracks a grin. “I couldn’t tell.”

Holt sighs again. “It was what I believe you’d call… a mic drop.”

Jake’s grin widens. Before he can add something clever, and he has just the comment waiting at the tip of his tongue, the car lets out a sputtering groan and then falls completely quiet. It rolls to a stop.

“Don’t worry, my car does this too. Just pump the gas a few times and turn the ignition back on.”

“I am not worried.” A pause while Holt does as Jake suggested. “Does it also smoke?”

“No, no, that’s new.” Jake frowns at the billowing smoke pouring from the car’s hood. “Is the car going to explode? Should we throw ourselves to the ground when it does? Or walk away slowly and never look back like badasses?”  

“I doubt it’ll explode. White smoke indicates problems with the coolant.”

“Right. I knew that.”  

Holt pops the hood open, releasing more smoke, and then they pile out of the car, each taking a gun with them. While Holt examines the engine, Jake stands back, bouncing on his toes. His eyes dart back and forth, checking out cars and buildings for any signs of zombies.

“Are you sure it’s not faster to just steal another car?”

“I am positive. This should be an easy fix.” 

“Kay.”

Jake feels a lot less certain than he sounds. They’re right in the middle of Philadelphia, there are far too many places a zombie could pop out from, and the car is still sending a stream of smoke up into the sky. Not that a zombie would be able to identify smoke as a sign of potential food. Probably. Jake frowns.

Holt’s started in on the engine with a toolbox taken from the trunk when a groan cuts through the air.

“911, we’ve got zombies!” Jake shouts as the first of a horde of zombies appears from their left. It’s far more zombies than Jake ever wanted to see, at least outside of a video game, movie, or tank. And they’re moving much faster than the shambling zombies of classic cinema.

Holt drops the wrench he was using, picks up his gun, and begins to run, shouting, “This way,” over his shoulder. Jake follows after, only remembering their forgotten packs when he’s past the car. It’s too late to go back, but he feels a stab of pity for their lost supplies. And then he pushes himself to run faster, catching up to Holt. They run through Philadelphia with the groans of an army behind them and the uncertainty of the path ahead of them.

One moment, Jake and Holt are running side-by-side, firing over their shoulders at the crowd - shamble, groaning, procession, Jake’s mind supplies unhelpfully - of zombies chasing them. And the next, Holt is no longer next to him. 

“Captain!" 

Jake screams, turning to see that a zombie has grabbed Holt’s arm and pulled him down. The zombie is very close to taking a bite out of his shoulder, has possibly already gnawed on him, Jake doesn’t know. What he does know is that Holt might die.

He’s not losing him.  

Jake fires his gun. The zombie’s head explodes, it’s a lot like the watermelon he and Rosa blew up back at the police academy a lifetime ago, chunks and red flying everywhere, but there’s no time to celebrate as the next zombie is coming up and they are most definitely not out of the woods yet. He fires again, downs another zombie, and then stretches out a hand to help Holt up.  

"Are you okay?” Jake looks Holt over. His jaw is clenched tight and there’s blood, well it’s hard to tell whether it’s Holt’s or the zombie’s, but it’s spattered _everywhere_. Jake’s stomach turns. “Did it bite you?" 

"Keep running, Peralta." 

"But - " 

” _Keep_ running.“

The rest of the zombie horde is getting dangerously close, so Jake grabs Holt’s arm and together they run. Holt’s steps are wobbly, slowing them down, but Jake keeps his arm around him.

“They’re gaining. You should go on ahead.”

“No way. You go down, we both go down.”

Holt is quiet, Jake isn’t sure it’s because he’s stunned into silence or because he’s realized he can’t change Jake’s mind, until he points out an alleyway and Jake moves them there. It’s a risky maneuver, they have no idea if the alley’s clear of zombies, but they can’t run straight forever. They’ll tire eventually and the zombies, at least thus far, have shown no signs of fatigue.

The alley twists and turns a few times before hitting a chain-link fence. The zombies have fallen behind, they can’t see them from around the corner though they can still hear their moans approaching.  

“Can you climb it?”  

“Of course I can.”

Jake lets Holt go first and while his climb is slow and punctuated with the occasional strangled groan, he makes it over just as the first zombie comes around the corner. Jake fires once and then clambers up, with Holt firing through the fence at any zombie that gets too close. Finally Jake makes it over and they set off again, with one last glance back at the zombies swarming by the fence.

The alley opens out into another street which they follow north by Holt’s direction. Now that a horde of zombies isn’t chasing them, Jake can truly notice just how many bodies there are. His stomach turns, bile rising up in his throat at the fetid odor, and he tries not to think about New York’s size. If this is what happens in Philly… 

It doesn’t matter right now.

Making sure Captain Holt is okay is more important. 

“Did they bite you?”

“No.” Jake lets out a sigh of relief. “However, I may have twisted my ankle.”

“What?!”

\--

That night, they sit and eat cold beans salvaged from a small bodega. Although they’ve put miles between themselves and the city, neither wants to risk a fire.

Holt’s foot is wrapped in supplies taken from three different first-aid kits and propped up on a garden gnome taken from the front lawn of a suburban house. Its presence casts a pall over the meal, a constant reminder of how close he’d come to death.

There had been so many zombies in Philadelphia, far more than Jake ever expected. More than half the city had turned into monsters and it was likely only worse in New York City with its massive and dense population. He shovels some beans into his mouth and forces himself to swallow even though the last thing he wants to do is eat. He just wants to know that Amy and the others are okay.

_They’re probably dead._

Even though Riley had apologized, the words had continued to lurk in the back of Jake’s head. And now, seeing what had happened to Philadelphia, just how many zombies there were in a large city, they’re back in the forefront of his mind, jangling. 

“Do you think – “ Jake can’t finish the thought. If he says it aloud, voices his doubt to the universe, it’ll strike down the others like a lightning bolt.

Holt shakes his head. “If anyone can survive, it’s the Nine-Nine.”

“Yeah.”

Jake notices that Holt hasn’t been eating his beans much either, the can still half-full. He also notices that Holt spoke only of their squad and not of his husband. He swallows around the lump in his throat and says, “Kevin’s alright too.” 

Holt doesn’t say anything, remains entirely motionless staring at a spot on the ground. Jake wants to say something more, something comforting and reassuring, but he’s tired and hurting and _they’re probably dead_ won’t stop playing in his head, a macabre mocking tune.

Eventually they go to bed.

\--

Amy runs down the streets pursued by ten zombies. She turns to fire back at them and while she hits one, the others take the chance to charge and grab her. She falls to the ground, screaming, buried beneath nine zombies.

And all he can do is stand there, useless, and howl her name.

Jake wakes with a jolt, limbs scrambling to do something, _anything_ , that can save her. His fingers rake through the dirt – oh, he’s on the ground, when did that happen, and where’s his gun – and then he remembers.  For a moment, he just lies there and stares out into the darkness, heart hammering in his heaving chest, mouth half-open.

There are no zombies here.

Amy isn’t here either.

Because Jake Peralta is not in New York City, he’s in the outskirts of Philly with Captain Holt, a bag filled with as much food as he could carry from a small bodega, and two guns with too few bullets for the number of zombies in the city.

Slowly he turns to the other side. Holt is still asleep, his chest rising and falling peacefully. Jake takes a gulp of fresh night air and then another, slow and steady, one two three four, counting like he does for Amy whenever she has a panic attack.

It was a dream. It was just a dream. A horrible dream, but just a dream.

“Amy is okay.”

There’s no way Jake is getting any more sleep tonight, so he gets up and walks a little away from camp. He sits down and looks up at the sky. There are more stars up there than Jake has ever seen before, whorls and specks of light, all unimaginably distant from him and one another.

“Amy is okay.” He tells the stars and the sky and anyone who might be listening, presses the truth of it into the very making of the universe. “She’s alive, being the world’s most badass zombie killer, and when I reach New York, I’ll find her and we’ll have the most amazing reunion kiss in the universe and be badasses together.”

The stars don’t answer him. In fact, staring up at them just makes him feel alone.

Amy had once told him the size of the universe while tracing constellations into his skin and while he doesn’t remember the exact number, he remembers that the universe was impossibly vast and growing ever vaster at every second. At the time, he hadn’t cared much; being with Amy had felt like his own secret, intimate universe.

But this universe, the one with all the stars spread out before him, it’s enormous and uncaring. It’ll continue blowing up and expanding regardless of what’s going on with humanity on a tiny planet orbiting an average star. No, scratch that. The planet is tiny in the eyes of the stars, but the _world_ is impossibly vast, miles and miles separating Jake from Amy.

He has no idea if Amy will even be in New York.

He pulls out the photograph he keeps of Amy. In it, she’s frozen mid-laugh, her eyes crinkled in delight, her head tilted slightly back. He’d been doing an impression of their perp (“finally a German bad guy!” “he’s in for vandalism and property damage” “shh, don’t ruin this!” “don’t do the accent” “I’m going to do the accent”) and when she’d started laughing, he’d snapped a quick photo.

If she was smart, and she was, she would have left the city behind and headed somewhere more rural, with less people. Less zombies. Somewhere she and the others could begin anew. Or maybe she would have gone to New Jersey first, to pick up her parents like Ellie and Riley were doing. Maybe she’d gone on a boat and left America behind entirely.  

When the world ends, all you have left is family and Amy had never known where Jake ended up for witness protection. Marshal Haas had said it was a necessary precaution, that the less people that knew, the safer they were, but now Jake just wants to scream. What if the apocalypse struck? What if Figgis suddenly became a small problem? What if the world ended and Amy didn’t have a way back to him?  

Jake has always let himself believe that he could find a way to her, but now he isn’t sure. If Philadelphia is this bad, what type of hellhole has New York City become? Who, assuming they survived the initial infection and subsequent zombie hordes and Jake will not let himself believe she had died, would stay behind?

His thumb skates across the photograph, over Amy’s cheeks and smile. He can still remember the feel of her soft skin beneath his fingers, the way her eyes lit up when she laughed, the taste of her mouth when they kissed. Are those memories and a single photograph all he’ll ever have of her? His stomach twists into knots.

“Trouble sleeping?”

Jake jumps at the sudden intrusion, hand instinctively dropping down to the gun he’d forgotten to bring along. Sloppy, the sort of lapse that got people killed in zombie movies. Fortunately it’s just Captain Holt, gun in hand, and not a talkative zombie but still. He should know better.   

“Yeah.”

Holt levers himself down to the ground. “Me too.”

Jake stares at the photograph of Amy. He can’t look at Holt when he asks this or he’ll start crying and never stop and he can’t afford to do that. Not when he still has to find her. “What if she’s dead?”

“Detective Santiago is alive and well.”

“You sound so sure.”

“I am. She is more than capable of surviving anything that comes her way.”

Jake hums. He can’t entirely disagree with Holt – she is tough and capable and smart – but _zombies_. Nothing in their lives has ever prepared them for an actual, honest-to-God zombie apocalypse outside of movies that failed to come close to the true horrors. They didn’t exactly have seminars on survival strategies outside of certain conventions and Jake knew Amy had never attended one of those. She was too busy perfecting her handshakes and leadership abilities to bother with impossible events.  

“I saw her die.” His voice is choked and even though Jake is firmly against crying right now, tears are beginning to sting at the corners of his eyes. “In my dream, I mean, not in reality. Obviously.”  

It’s never easy to read the minute changes in Holt’s expressions, even after years of knowing him, but right now, his eyes are undeniably soft and kind, sympathetic. “Dreams cannot show us what happened.”

“I know.” Jake blinks, the photo of Amy blurring in front of him. “I just – I don’t know if she’s okay. I have no way of knowing if she’s okay right now. Anything could have happened to her, she could be dead or injured or a-a zombie, and I might never know because I was in _Florida_.”

A hand falls on his shoulder, sturdy and reassuring in its weight, and it’s the final straw, the one that breaks the dam of tears and sends them rushing down Jake’s face. He inhales noisily, choking on sobs and misery and _not knowing_. Holt’s fingers curl tighter and Jake isn’t sure if he’s the one to lean forward or if Holt is the one to pull him closer but then he’s sobbing against Holt’s chest, entire body shaking with the effort. Holt’s arms come around him a beat later.

It’s not until the sobs fade, turn into a silent type of heaving, that Jake realizes that Holt is speaking, has been speaking the entire time.

“She’s okay, they’re all okay, we’ll find them – “ And if the words are a little strained, like maybe Holt is fighting back his own tears, then it’s nearly impossible to notice. But Jake does and he raises his hands to pat at Holt’s arms, pulling back enough to look at the man’s face. There are no tears staining his cheeks, but his eyes are glinting.     

Jake swallows, sits up, and in a voice more trembling than he would have liked, says, “If they’re all okay, then Kevin is – he’s okay too. They would have found him when it started. They would have made sure he stayed safe.”

“I know.”

And because Holt sounds so confident, even around the slight strain in his voice, the one that Jake wants to pretend isn’t there, that this is just his strong robot captain and not a man who may have lost his husband, Jake has to ask, “How?”

“It’s the only way to keep going.”   

Jake has nothing to say to that, no jokes to shrug off the gravity of Holt’s words, his tongue suddenly limp and useless in his mouth, so he nods and stares off into the starry sky and lets them settle over him.

\--

After sweeping through four different houses, they manage to find a set of keys and a car left behind by a family. Neither of them looks too closely at the photographs on the wall or the assorted knickknacks of abandoned lives. Jake takes the wheel after reminding Holt that he can’t drive with an injured leg.

Hours later, the familiar skyline of New York City creeps into view and Jake almost cries.

They made it. They actually made it.

From this distance, the city looks unchanged, the buildings majestic and soaring, and Jake can picture the crowds of New Yorkers and tourists alike hustling through the streets, hailing taxis, buying hot dogs from street carts. All the sights and sounds and smells of home – he knows it won’t be like that, of course, instead there will be empty streets and rotting corpses and hollow-eyed survivors – but the sense memories flood his mind regardless.

More important than all those things though – somewhere in this city, Jake hopes, he’ll find Amy again.  

The closer they get to the city, the slower they have to drive as more cars choke up the freeway and Jake has to spend more time wending his way through obstacles. His left foot bounces uncontrollably and it’s taking everything in him to sit still and be patient.  

They’re so close.  

They should have stolen a monster truck and roared through these obstacles.

When he tells Holt this, Holt snorts, shakes his head, and informs him that it wouldn’t make for very fast progress. Jake disagrees and in any case, it would be awesome.

Eventually they’re forced to leave their car, as too many abandoned vehicles block the streets ahead. Their progress is slow as Holt limps along on a set of makeshift crutches and they’re forced to take long side-excursions to avoid zombie-heavy regions. But at least the streets are familiar, even changed as they are by the bodies and unnerving silence.

It’s Brooklyn, it’s home. They just need their family now.

The heat of the day sticks Jake’s shirt to his skin and his hair flat to his face and he considers stopping for deodorant before they reach the precinct. After all, he hasn’t showered in _days_ and although it won’t do anything for the grimy feeling on his skin, at least he’ll smell better.  

He’s about to ask Holt if they can stop at the next 7-11 they see when gunshots pierce the quiet of the streets. The two of them stare at each other.

“Careful. We don’t know if they’re friendly.” Holt warns Jake and Jake nods back.

Together they creep forward, guns readied to fire at any lingering zombies. Then they turn the corner;  time freezes, Jake’s breath whooshes out of his lungs, mouth dropping open in relief and ecstasy and a thousand other emotions, and the world finally makes sense again. 

“Amy! Amy!”

And for a moment, Jake forgets to be quiet. He forgets that there’s a zombie apocalypse around them, that he’s supposed to stay cautious at all times to avoid attracting attention, that he’s spent several long, restless days driving and fighting to get here for this exact moment. 

Because Amy Santiago is standing on the street, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, his leather jacket like armor on her body, the sunlight framing her like an angel with a shotgun. He runs, long legs taking him past corpses and cars, and Amy turns at the sound of his voice, sees him, starts running and calling his name –

They smash into each other. 

His lips find hers and it’s messy as their momentum carries them together, teeth clacking together at first, noses bumping as they shift to find a better position, to press ever closer into one being. She angles her head to deepen the kiss, hands clutching his face, frantic, as if this single action can erase the months of separation and anxiety resting between them. His hands flutter along her body, touching briefly on her upper arms, then down her sides to her hips.

Once satisfied that she really is alive, his arms wrap tight around her, fingers flattening out across her back and curling into her. He is never going to let her go, never letting anything separate them again, he knows that in the bone-deep way he’s always known he would be a detective or that his mother deserves everything good in this world. For as long as she will have him, for as long as the world keeps spinning and they keep walking on its surface, Jake Peralta is never letting go of Amy Santiago again.   

They pull apart, just enough to take in air, foreheads pressing together and bodies trembling with emotion. She fills his entire world and he drinks in the sight of her, alive and healthy and _here_ , in front of him and in his arms. Her breath puffs out from her lips, soft against his face, and he can feel the expansion and compression of her lungs and she smells like sweat and dirt and all these things are comforting like nothing else.

She’s _alive_.

He wants to cry, the last couple of days and the months before that sloughing off his shoulders, and her eyes are gleaming with tears and he has to kiss her again, has to press every aspect of her into himself as if she isn’t already imprinted on his very soul, as if she isn’t already his entire universe.

Someone, Rosa, he later figures out, clears their throat. A moment later when that fails to capture either of their attention, she says, “Hate to break this up but this is still a zombie apocalypse and we are still outside.”

Amy blinks. She pulls away enough that Jake can see Rosa standing near-by, a gun in her hands and a sword strapped to her back. She looks like she could take on Michonne and win and honestly Jake should never have doubted Rosa’s chances of survival because of course she would take the zombie apocalypse and utterly destroy.

“Hey Jake.” Rosa nods at him.

“Hey.” He nods back.

It’s their usual greeting since their days at the academy and it’s always been enough, but now, having spent the last couple days not knowing if she was alive, his face breaks out into a large grin and he steps away from Amy to give Rosa a big hug.

Rosa stiffens slightly, this is the first time they’ve hugged and Jake knows the list of people who’ve hugged Rosa is ridiculously short, and then she wraps her arms around him. Rosa murmurs in his ear, soft so no one else can hear the emotion in her voice, “I’m glad you’re alright.”

“You too.”   

After the hug ends, Jake steps back and wraps his arm around Amy’s waist, fingers splaying out on her hip. Amy’s arm comes around him and their sides press together and he never wants any distance between them again.

Holt reaches them then and Jake can feel the tension in Amy’s body, her need to run and hug him warring with the painstaking decorum of their positions.

“Captain!” Amy exclaims, her face bright and open. She offers her free hand, the one not currently wrapped around Jake. “It’s good to see you!”    

Holt accepts her handshake and Amy’s smile grows impossibly brighter. “It’s good to see you too, Santiago.”

There’s the barest hints of a smile on Holt’s face, the upturning of his lips and the relief in his eyes, and Jake supposes it’s that which sends Amy forward to hug him. He returns the hug, his expression turning soft, and it lodges some heavy emotion in Jake’s chest. His family, two of the people he cares about most in the world, and they’re so happy, _he’s_ so happy, this is everything that he’s been waiting for.

Amy pulls away first, stepping back into Jake’s waiting arm. She’s still beaming, shining brighter than any star Jake has seen, and it makes Jake press a kiss to her temple, his nose briefly burying into her hair. Meanwhile, Rosa and Holt nod at each other and for two people who repress their emotions, there is a world of relief and love passed between them in that one movement.

“Kevin is alright.” Amy says and Holt turns to her. “He’s staying with us at the precinct.”

“Thank you.” Holt’s voice is choked and it’s like a burden has been lifted off him, the way his shoulders straighten and his eyes gleam at her words. “And the others?”

“Everyone is okay. We all made it.”

And Jake has never heard anything better, has never felt more relief than he does knowing that his family has survived and is waiting for him.

\--

They head back to the station and while all Jake wants to do is talk, he stays quiet. They all do, mindful of any sounds that might attract zombies to their location. He does get to hold Amy’s hand while they walk though, as well as cast constant looks her way, so it’s not all bad.

The lower windows have been boarded up, but otherwise the building is unchanged. Seeing it fills Jake’s heart with warmth and when they enter to see Charles standing guard, that warmth only grows.

“Charles, we’re – “ Rosa doesn’t even get to finish her statement because at that point, Charles spots Jake and Holt and charges over, tears streaming down his face.

“Jakey!” Jake almost staggers from the force of Charles’ hug, his hand falling out of Amy’s so his arms can wrap around his best friend. The knot in his chest further unwinds, as it has with each successive face he’s seen. “I knew you would make it! I knew it! No zombies can hold you down.”

“That’s right. We Zombieland-ed our way up the coast and it was awesome and I was the most badass zombie killer who ever lived!”

“Peralta.”

“Fine. The captain helped too.”    

It ends up being one of the longest hugs of Jake’s life because Charles will not let go, even as he goes on to promise Jake to introduce him to his son Nikolaj soon. It’s only when more people enter the room and Gina interrupts that Charles releases him and goes to hug Captain Holt instead.

Gina hugs Jake next, her fingers digging a little too hard into his back, crushing him to her. She whispers, “Remember Zombie Fantasy Survival Team?”

It’s impossible to forget. After watching Dawn of the Dead for the first time as kids and becoming sufficiently freaked out about the impending zombie apocalypse, they’d spent hours drafting up the best zombie survival teams. After setting the arbitrary limit of four survivors, Gina’s list had come down to multiple celebrities, all jacked and supposedly strong enough to take down hordes of zombies on their own. Jake had not been on it, because, no hard feelings, “an apocalypse is no time for friendship, Jake.”

(Jake’s list had been: his mother, Nana, Gina, and Bruce Willis. After Gina had unveiled her list and hard feelings had been felt, he’d told her he would kick her off his squad in favor of Ken Foree.

He’d never made the official change.)

“Uh, yeah. How could I forget the best zombie team of all time?”

“I changed my mind. I’m glad you’re on mine.”

Jake pulls back to stare at Gina. Her eyes have just the slightest sheen to them, Jake knows she won’t actually cry in front of so many people, and she’s smiling wide. A smile breaks out across his own face. “Me too.”  

Terry approaches, first hugging Holt and then Jake, slapping their backs in turn. “Terry always believed you would find a way back.”

Gina cuts in, though her voice lacks its usual bite, still a little choked around the edges. “That why you were crying in the closet yesterday?”

“Zombie apocalypses are very emotional!”

Jake smiles, really he hasn’t stopped smiling since the moment he laid eyes on Amy. He figures it’ll be a long time before he stops. “Aww, thanks, Sarge. I missed you too.”

It’s that moment that Kevin marches into the room straight to Holt and embraces him. Holt lets his crutches drop to return the hug.

Jake is absolutely giddy when they kiss, both because he’s unbelievably happy for their reunion and because he was right, there was smooching. If it wasn’t for all the overwhelming emotions of the day, Jake would have called out to them or whistled. But – his eyes slide to Amy and his heart positively glows at the love in the room – they deserve this.  

Kevin and Holt only break apart when Cheddar charges into the room and jumps at Holt’s leg. Holt laughs, it’s the biggest and most carefree smile Jake has ever seen on the man’s face, something joyous and beautiful that comes from relief and knowing and _family_ , and kneels to pet the bouncing corgi.

“Hello Cheddar! There’s a good boy.”  

“He’s missed you very much.” Kevin observes as Cheddar licks at Holt’s face. “ _We’ve_ missed you.”

At that, Holt looks up, wells of feeling, of joy and love, contained in his eyes. Jake turns away then, the raw emotion too much to watch, and looks over the other people who’ve gathered in the room.    

It’s not just his friends and their familes that are gathered around - though they are the closest. There’s HR Jim who used to high-five Jake when Amy started forwarding their emails, there are three beat cops Jake recognizes the faces of but not the names, there’s a Latino man with the exact same eyes as Amy (one of her brothers, he realizes), there are people Jake has never seen before and cannot place. The precinct shelters more people than just their little group, it’s become the haven for so many survivors who would be lost without it.

“Jake!”

He turns and there’s his mother pushing her way past other people to reach him and he never expected to find her here, alive and whole.

“Mom!” He moves forward to meet her, arms automatically going up around her, face burying its way against her neck. She still smells like paints and rugelach and home, underneath the general odors of the apocalypse, and it takes Jake back to his childhood, every moment when he’d been frightened and she’d taken him in her arms and whispered sweet words of comfort and told him stories about guardians who stood up to the terrors of the world. “How – how are you here?”

“Amy came over when things started getting bad and brought me here.”

Jake looks back at Amy and she beams, he realizes she’s been watching him this entire time, as he’s reunited with all their friends, and his heart has never felt this full, never felt so much love enveloping him, an entire ocean’s worth. It’s overwhelming, the way it presses in around him, and he wants to cry for everything he feared he’d lost and instead found again. Somehow he manages to choke words out though they can’t possibly contain the multitudes of his emotions.

“Thank you.”

Amy’s eyes are gentle and kind as they look back at him. “Of course.” 

He looks back at his mom. “Dad?”

His mom’s lips press tight together. “He was out on a flight.”

Jake nods. He holds his mom closer and it’s okay, she’s here and Amy’s here and every single person Jake Peralta loves more than anything is here under the same roof, his _family_ , and it’s okay.  

\--

Rosa breaks out hoarded bottles of champagne and beer and whiskey to celebrate their return and very quickly the room turns into a party, the atmosphere giddy and light. Jake has a feeling some of the survivors party less for their return, they don’t even _know_ them, and more for the excuse to celebrate _anything_ remotely joyous. It feels like it’s been eons since they’ve celebrated and lived for something other than survival.

The only time Jake leaves Amy’s side during the entire party is to head to the bathroom and even that brief time away tugs at his heart.

On his way back to her, Holt stops him in the hall. “Peralta. I need to speak with you.”

“Lay it on me, Captain.”

“The journey up here was not an easy one.”

“That’s putting it lightly.”

“Yes, I purposely understated our trials to better make my point. I appreciate your notice.” Jake’s brow furrows, his head tilting just a bit. Holt continues, “My point being, I would not have it made it here without you. You did remarkably well. I could not have asked for a better traveling companion.”

Jake beams at Holt and maybe his eyes prickle a little bit but no one can prove a thing. Holt extends his hand. Jake doesn’t hesitate; he steps past it to hug him. “I wouldn’t have made it without you either.”

He rests his chin on Holt’s shoulder and lets himself feel _everything_ , the warmth and love of being surrounded by his family, of being home after the world’s most dangerous road trip and six months of hell, of having Captain Holt’s approval, the approval of a man who is more his dad than his actual father. Jake basks in all of it and then he grins and pats Holt’s back.

“This about fills your hug quota for the day, doesn’t it?”   

“It exceeds it… but I can make an exception for today.”

Jake’s smile widens. He lets the hug go a little longer before patting Holt on the back and pulling away. “Better get back to the party.”

By which he means Amy most of all, but then Holt strides straight for Kevin so they’re not all that different.

When Jake returns to Amy’s side, still grinning, she smiles at him and tugs him away. He follows easily, all the way to the interrogation room. Several cots are set up around the room; only one of them is neatly made, corners drawn tight, and it’s this one that Amy leads him to. The bed is narrow, only meant for a single occupant, but Jake doesn’t mind. He doesn’t want any more space between Amy and himself.

They slip under the covers. Amy tucks herself against Jake, their legs tangling together until they’re as close as possible. Her hand slides under his shirt, flattening out across his stomach. She’s warm and in his arms and there’s a lump of emotion currently lodged in his throat.  

“I missed you.” Jake croaks the words out as his hand reaches to cradle the back of her skull. He strokes her hair, it’s greasier than normal, the limited hygienic opportunities of the apocalypse taking their toll, but still soft.

“I missed you too.”

He swallows. The weight of her against him, her hand on his belly, acts like an anchor. A reminder that she is here with him and it’s only with that reassurance that he can speak the next words, softly as if at any other volume, the universe may overhear and make them true. “I thought – I thought I might never see you again. I thought – that something – that you may have… died. Or been turned into a zombie.”

“I’m okay.” Amy shifts, presses a small kiss to his throat, then another to his jaw. He huffs out a laugh at the soft touch and she nuzzles against him. “I was scared too… I wanted to go find you but I didn’t even know where they sent you. And Marshal Haas wasn’t picking up her phone after everything started. No one was. It all fell apart so fast.”

“Florida.” She pulls back just enough for him to stare into her brown eyes, at her eyebrows knit together. “That’s where I was. Coral Palms, Florida. It was hot and humid and horrible. We should just saw the entire state off.”

“What about Splash Mountain?”

“We’ll still have California.”

She stares at him for a moment, lips twitching, and then tilts her head back, laughing. It’s the most wonderful sound in the world, bright and crystalline, and Jake lets it wash over him until he’s laughing too. He doesn’t even know why, Florida was _awful_ and he is completely serious about sawing it off, but this, right here, with Amy, even surrounded by zombies, is not awful in the slightest. He laughs until his belly hurts, harder than he’s laughed in months, with Amy’s shaking body quaking beside him.

Eventually her laughter peters off, his following right after, and they lay together, the only sound their heavy breaths.

Amy’s fingers dig more tightly into his skin then, almost painful. “That’s so far away.”

“Yeah.” Jake agrees. He’d looked up the distance once on Google, seen the small line connecting his house in Coral Palms to Amy’s in Brooklyn, and traced each mile with his finger. He’d never imagined having to drive that distance though he would have crawled it if that was what it took to return to her. “I’m here now.”

“You’re here.” Amy repeats, sliding her palm up to his heart. She says it again, voice quiet and focused. “You’re here.”

His hand drops down to cover her hand. “And I’m never letting anything separate us again. No mobsters or zombies or world-ending apocalypses, nothing.”

“They’ll have to go through both of us.” Her eyes, hard as steel for just the moment it takes to make her vow against the universe, grow soft. “I love you.”

Jake’s face breaks out into a grin, the earlier intensity fading away in the rush of hearing her say those words again. “I love you too.”

His hand drifts down to her waist, to pull her closer, as he presses his lips to hers. Stars burst in his chest, brilliant supernovas, until there’s just a calm stillness, the settling and coalescing of dust and time at his very core, something essential and profound and immovable.

Outside zombies continue to shuffle and groan in an endless quest for sustenance, but inside the interrogation room of a Brooklyn police station, Jake has found his again.

**Author's Note:**

> All the zombie references! Hopefully next time I’ll manage to sneak one in about Shaun of the Dead. Additionally, Ellie and Riley were modeled after the characters in The Last of Us (aka the best piece of zombie media of all time). 
> 
> Most important note of all, sorry Jake, but the longevity of Twinkies is an urban legend. They only last about 45 days.
> 
> If you want to talk about zombies or Brooklyn 99 or jake/amy or really anything, my tumblr is [proofthatihaveaheart](http://proofthatihaveaheart.tumblr.com/).


End file.
